Work With Me

Work With Me! Leveraging Generational Knowledge to Accomplish Your Mission

Sherri PetroSherri Petro

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Today’s Speaker

Hosting: Sam Frank, Synthesis Partnership

Assisting with chat questions: April Hunt, Nonprofit Webinars

Sherri PetroPresident and CSO,

VPI Strategies

A better way of seeing things

March 2011

With Sherri Petro

Work With Me! Leveraging Generational

Knowledge to Accomplish Your Mission

The Objectives

♦ Define the generational mix

♦ Discuss and why we think the way we do and the

consequences of four generations in the workplace

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♦ Share best practices to decrease generational

misunderstandings

♦ Share verbiage we can use to insure the people

around us hear and understand our message

The Generation Mix In 2011

♦ Traditionalists

– Born 1925-45

– 66-86 years

♦ Generation X

– Born 1965-80

– 31-46 years

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– 66-86 years

♦ Baby Boomers

– Born 1946-64

– 47-65 years

– 31-46 years

♦ Generation Y

– Born 1981-?

– Under 31

National Working Landscape 2006

6.5%

22.5%

Traditionalists

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41%

30%

Baby Boomers

Generation X

Generation Y

Boards According to BoardSource’s

Nonprofit Governance Index 2010

Under 300%

30-397%

40-49

65+23%

Age

Traditionalists

Gen Y

Gen X (sort of)

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40-4920%

50-6450%

Baby Boomers

Clarifying Question

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Affects in the Workplace

♦ Work ethic

♦ Time sensitivities

♦ Retention

♦ Work priorities

♦ Company loyalty

♦ Meeting

management

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♦ Subscription to

technology

♦ Entitlement

management

♦ Change

♦ Level of respect

Generational “Fun” for Managers

♦ Delegation

♦ Communication vehicle preferences

♦ Conflict resolution styles

Career development discussions ♦ Career development discussions

♦ Handling performance appraisals

♦ Rewards and recognition

♦ Learning styles

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The Shadow

The ED/Board generational challenge

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Generational Group Exercise

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Generational Group Discussion

1. What motivates your generation?

2. What are you most proud of about your

generation?

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generation?

3. What do you wish the other generations

appreciated about yours?

And The Research Says

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Traditionalist Motivations

♦ Think “S”

– Safety

– Security – Security

– Stability

– Structure

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Traditionalist Work Style

♦ Command and control

♦ Can be tough for them to use

their own judgment

♦ Why customize?

♦ Believe in the value of work

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♦ Believe in the value of work

more than finding personal

meaning

♦ Separation of work and home

♦ Acknowledged for what they

know as well as what they do

Baby Boomer Motivations

♦Think “P”

–Prestige

–Power–Power

–Perks

–Process

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Baby Boomer Work Style

♦ All about respect

♦ Self-improvement

♦ Strong work ethic

Desire flexibility

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♦ Desire flexibility

♦ Optimistic and idealistic

♦ Struggle with work/life balance

♦ Into symbols of recognition as rewards

Gen X Motivations

♦Think “F”

–Flexibility

–Freedom

–Family

–Fun, their way

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Generation X Work Style

♦ Job movement

♦ Money-motivated

♦ Like to solve their own problems

♦ Multi-taskers

♦ Informal

♦ Results-oriented

♦ Quick study

♦ Sound byte processing

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♦ Multi-taskers

♦ Fiercely independent

♦ Direct communicators versus reading in between the lines

♦ Sound byte processing

♦ Work solo and yet on teams

♦ Need for external recognition as reward

Gen Y Motivations

♦Think “C”

–Cause

–Community–Community

–Creativity

–Connection

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Generation Y Work Style

♦ Digital natives

♦ Work on their own

terms

♦ Think globally

♦ Multi-taskers

♦ Desire mutual respect

♦ Ready for collaboration

♦ Want to make a

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♦ Have positive

expectations

♦ Want customization

♦ Desire interactivity

♦ Express to express --

not impress

♦ Want to make a difference

♦ Celebrate diversity

♦ Acknowledgement for being here

♦ Looking for an

experience

Start with Similarities*

♦ We receive great reward

– For the work we do

– From the people we work with

– And the belief that we are contributing to

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– And the belief that we are contributing to society and our current jobs

♦ We receive great satisfaction from our accomplishments at work

• CCL Emerging Leaders Research by Ross DePinto, 2003

Generational Similarities

♦ We have

– A desire to learn

– A desire to be acknowledged

– A desire to be rewarded

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– A desire to be rewarded

♦ We want

– To be trusted, valued and respected

– To succeed

Solutions: Mind Set

♦ Expand your mental model. Value and leverage

those that think and act differently than you and

have diverse experiences.

♦ Recognize there may be conflicts due to ♦ Recognize there may be conflicts due to

differences in generational motivation

– Traditionalists - legacy

– BB – process

– Gen X – results

– Gen Y – experience

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Solutions: Actions

♦ Make a commitment to age diversity

♦ Concentrate on similarities as a start

♦ Employ a student and teacher mindset

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♦ Match generational motivation to your messaging,

use the language each generation resonates with

♦ Create multi-generational teams

♦ Enlarge ideas instead of taking sides

♦ Do NOT diminish an opinion based on age

Solutions: Actions

♦ Conduct a temperature check survey on being valued,

trusted and respected

♦ Have informal & scheduled times to brainstorm,

update and coach

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update and coach

♦ Create healthy conflict resolution guidelines

♦ Honor energy, intuition and instincts

♦ Agree that getting to the objective is the most

important and not necessarily HOW – unless unethical

Hmmm…

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Boards According to BoardSource’s

Nonprofit Governance Index 2010

Under 300%

30-397%

40-49

65+23%

Age

Traditionalists

Gen Y

Gen X (sort of)

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40-4920%

50-6450%

Baby Boomers

Why You Might Want Multiple

Generations on Your Board

♦ Energy - They can assist you in becoming the “anti-

bored board”

♦ New perspective and ideas - Questioning the value of

the old way of doing thingsthe old way of doing things

♦ You create the opportunity for more voices to be heard

and develop a lively dialogue

♦ They can teach you how to value and be more efficient

with technology like BoardEffect®

♦ Your board may be the only one they are on!

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What We Can Expect From

Younger Board Members

♦ More movement in and out of boards by

younger board members

♦ More questions that we need to take

seriouslyseriously

♦ More efficient meetings

♦ More evidence of good work

♦ More requests for hands-on work

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Thank You!

Sherri Petro

VPI Strategies

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VPI Strategies

[email protected]

www.vpistrategies.com

858-583-3097

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Chris [email protected]

707-812-1234

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